Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Retired Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer said Saturday he has sources
saying President Barack Obama was in the room at the White House
watching the assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya unfold.Two unarmed U.S. drones were dispatched
to the consulate and recorded the final hours of the attack, which
killed U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other
Americans.
“This was in the middle of the business day in Washington, so
everybody at the White House, CIA, Pentagon, everybody was watching this
go down,” Shaffer said on Fox News’ “Justice with Judge Jeanine.”
“According to my sources, yes, [Obama] was one of those in the White
House Situation Room in real-time watching this.”

Shaffer served as a senior operations officer for the Defense
Intelligence Agency in Afghanistan in 2003 and wrote a book critical of
the policies there. The U.S. government purchased the entire print run for $47,000 in an attempt at censorship just before its 2010 publication, claiming it contained classified material.
Shaffer said the question now is what precisely Obama did or didn’t
do in the moments he saw the attack unfolding. The CIA reportedly made three urgent requests for military backup that were each denied.
“He, only he, could issue a directive to Secretary of Defense Panetta
to do something. That’s the only place it could be done,” Shaffer said.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last week the military did not intervene because they did not have enough information about what was happening on the ground.
Col. David Hunt, a Fox News military analyst, said the military could
have had jets in the air within 20 minutes and forces on the ground
within two hours.
“The issue is always political with the White House, but the
secretary of defense gives the order, has to be approved by the White
House, they wouldn’t pull the trigger, and it’s disgraceful,” Hunt said.
“We’ve got guys dead.”Video Sources: The President Was Watching... http://bit.ly/U6Y7eW

Former CIA director
David Petraeus said a reference to possible al-Qaeda connections was
dropped from “talking points” used by the Obama administration in its
initial accounts of the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in
Benghazi, Libya,...more »

David LermanSan Francisco Chronicle2 hours ago

Sep 27, 20123 CommentsPat DollardExcerpted from GATEWAY PUNDIT:
Yesterday there were reports that the Obama Administration found out
that Al-Qaeda was behind the Benghazi consulate attacks within 24 hours
of the assault that killed four Americans.
So what was their first action?
Did they secure the compound? – No, that took over a week to get FBI agents to the consulate
Did they acknowledge it was an Al-Qaeda attack? No, Obama this week blamed the terror attack on a YouTube protest.
Here’s what they did – They scrubbed a damning State Department memo from the internet–
On Wednesday September 12, 2012 blogger Speak With Authority discovered
that five days before 9-11, the US State Department sent out a memo
announcing no credible security threats against the United States on the
anniversary of 9-11.
The Overseas Security Advisory Council, who posted the memo, is part
of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security under the U.S. Department of State.
Here is a screengrab of the memo at the OSAC website:
But now it’s gone.The State Department scrubbed the letter from its OSAC website.

Posted by Jim Hoft on Thursday, September 27, 2012, 9:17 AM

Yesterday there were reports that the Obama Administration found out that Al-Qaeda was behind the Benghazi consulate attacks within 24 hours of the assault that killed four Americans.So what was their first action?Did they secure the compound? – No, that took over a week to get FBI agents to the consulateDid they acknowledge it was an Al-Qaeda attack? No, Obama this week blamed the terror attack on a YouTube protest.Here’s what they did – They scrubbed a damning State Department memo from the internet–
On Wednesday September 12, 2012 blogger Speak With Authority
discovered that five days before 9-11, the US State Department sent out
a memo announcing no credible security threats against the United
States on the anniversary of 9-11.
The Overseas Security Advisory Council, who posted the memo, is part of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security under the U.S. Department of State.
Here is a screengrab of the memo at the OSAC website:
The OSAC memo said:

Terrorism and Important Dates
Global
9/6/2012
OSAC currently has no credible information to suggest that al-Qa’ida
or any other terrorist group is plotting any kind of attack overseas to
coincide with the upcoming anniversary of September 11. However,
constituents often have concerns around important dates, holidays, and
major events, Often times, these concerns are the result of increased
media attention to the issue, rather than credible evidence of a
terrorist plot.

Posted by Jim Hoft on Saturday, September 15, 2012, 11:47 AM

On 9-11 the US Consulate in Benghazi was destroyed and our ambassador was murdered.
The bloodstained walls revealed that US officials were dragged to their death.
There will be blood: A Libyan man explains that the bloodstains on the
column are from one the American staff members who grabbed the edge of
the column while he was evacuated, after an attack that killed four
Americans on September 11tt. (Daily Mail)Now this…
The Obama Administration was warned three days before the 9-11 attack about the deteriorating security in Benghazi.
The deadly Islamist attack was carried out on the 11th anniversary of
the 9-11 attacks on America and only three months after the same
consulate was bombed.CNN reported:

Three days before the deadly assault on the
United States consulate in Libya, a local security official says he met
with American diplomats in the city and warned them about deteriorating
security.
Jamal Mabrouk, a member of the February 17th Brigade, told CNN that
he and a battalion commander had a meeting about the economy and
security.
He said they told the diplomats that the security situation wasn’t good for international business.“The situation is frightening, it scares us,” Mabrouk said they told the U.S. officials. He did not say how they responded.

According to McClatchy Newspapers – Five contractors and three members
of Libya’s 17th of February Brigade, a group formed during the first
days of the uprising against Moammar Gadhafi and now considered part of
Libya’s military, were protecting the perimeter of the compound at the
time of the attack.Power Line has more on the Benghazi attack.
It doesn’t look good for the Obama Administration.More… Egyptian intelligence warned of impending attacks on September 4th.

Chaos at the State Dept?

I spoke with a well-placed journalist last night whose sources
describe the situation at the State Department in one word: “Chaos.”
The working assumption is that several American embassies may have been
penetrated, or are vulnerable to attack, because so many of them rely on
local residents for staff needs at the embassy, and as such may be in a
position to breach security if they have been recruited by Al Qaida.
Moreover, the full story of the attack on the Benghazi consulate is much
worse than we have been told (except by the Independent newspaper report John and I linked to here on Thursday).
The consulate in Benghazi was an interim facility, with only a
standard door lock for security, and worse, Ambassador Stevens was
traveling with only a light security detail, rather than in the heavily
armed convoys our diplomats in the region usually employ. The attack on
the Benghazi was no mere target of opportunity spurred by reaction to
the “Innocence of Muslims” film; the film is just a pretext. The
killing of Amb. Stevens was a premeditated hit, planned and carried out
as retaliation for the recent drone strike that killed the number two Al
Qaida operative in Afghanistan recently. The vulnerability of Stevens
at the Benghazi compound was scouted out carefully. All the other
embassy protest activity is just covering theater.

Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Former CIA director David Petraeus said a reference to possible al-Qaeda
connections was dropped from “talking points” used by the Obama
administration in its initial accounts of the Sept. 11 attack on the
U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, according to a Republican lawmaker.

“It’s still not clear how the talking points emerged,” Representative Peter King
of New York, a member of the House intelligence committee, said today
after a closed-door briefing for the panel by Petraeus. “No one knows
yet exactly who came up with the final version of the talking points.”

The
possibility that references to potential terrorist links were taken out
of the account may further fuel Republican criticism of President Barack Obama’s administration for its early description of the attack as developing from a spontaneous demonstration. U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the assault.

While
Petraeus told the House panel today that he didn’t know how the
reference to al-Qaeda connections was dropped from the talking points,
the former CIA chief said the memo went “through a long process” with
other federal agencies involved, according to King.

U.S.
Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice depended on the
intelligence community’s talking points when she said on Sunday talk
shows Sept. 16 that the assault developed from a spontaneous
demonstration against an anti-Islamic video that was “hijacked” by
militants, according to the administration.

Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Former CIA director David Petraeus said a reference to possible al-Qaeda
connections was dropped from “talking points” used by the Obama
administration in its initial accounts of the Sept. 11 attack on the
U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, according to a Republican lawmaker.

“It’s still not clear how the talking points emerged,” Representative Peter King
of New York, a member of the House intelligence committee, said today
after a closed-door briefing for the panel by Petraeus. “No one knows
yet exactly who came up with the final version of the talking points.”

The
possibility that references to potential terrorist links were taken out
of the account may further fuel Republican criticism of President Barack Obama’s administration for its early description of the attack as developing from a spontaneous demonstration. U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the assault.

While
Petraeus told the House panel today that he didn’t know how the
reference to al-Qaeda connections was dropped from the talking points,
the former CIA chief said the memo went “through a long process” with
other federal agencies involved, according to King.

U.S.
Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice depended on the
intelligence community’s talking points when she said on Sunday talk
shows Sept. 16 that the assault developed from a spontaneous
demonstration against an anti-Islamic video that was “hijacked” by
militants, according to the administration.